The Cloister and the Hearth Part 53

"IN prison, sir; good lack, for what misdeed?"

"Well, she is a witness, and may be a necessary one."

"Why, Messire Bailiff," put in Denys, "you lay not all your witnesses by the heels I trow."

The alderman, pleased at being called bailiff, became communicative. "In a case of blood we detain all testimony that is like to give us leg bail, and so defeat Justice, and that is why we still keep the womenfolk. For a man at odd times bides a week in one mind, but a woman, if she do her duty to the realm o' Friday, she shall undo it afore Sunday, or try. Could you see yon wench now, you should find her a blubbering at having betrayed five males to the gallows. Had they been females, we might have trusted to a subpna. For they despise one another. And there they show some sense. But now I think on't, there were other reasons for laying this one by the heels. Hand me those depositions, young sir." And he put on his gla.s.ses. "Ay! she was implicated: she was one of the band."

A loud disclaimer burst from Denys and Gerard at once.

"No need to deave me," said the alderman. "Here 'tis in black and white.

'Jean Hardy (that is one of the thieves), being questioned confessed that,'--humph? Ay, here 'tis. 'And that the girl Manon was the decoy, and her sweetheart was Georges Vipont, one of the band; and hanged last month: and that she had been deject ever since, and had openly blamed the band for his death, saying, if they had not been rank cowards, he had never been taken, and it is his opinion she did but betray them out of very spite, and--'"

"His opinion," cried Gerard indignantly, "what signifies the opinion of a cut-throat, burning to be revenged on her who has delivered him to justice? And an you go to that what avails his testimony? Is a thief never a liar? Is he not aye a liar? and here a motive to lie? Revenge, why 'tis the strongest of all the pa.s.sions. And oh, sir, what madness to question a detected felon and listen to him lying away an honest life--as if he were a true man swearing in open day, with his true hand on the Gospel laid!"

"Young man," said the alderman, "restrain thy heat in presence of authority! I find by your tongue you are a stranger. Know then that in this land we question all the world. We are not so weak as to hope to get at the truth by shutting either our left ear or our right."

"And so you would listen to Satan belying the saints!"

"Ta! ta! The law meddles but with men and women, and these cannot utter a story all lies, let them try ever so. Wherefore we shut not the barn-door (as the saying is) against any man's grain. Only having taken it in we do winnow and sift it. And who told you I had swallowed the thief's story whole like fair water? Not so. I did but credit so much on't as was borne out by better proof."

"Better proof?" and Gerard looked blank. "Why who but the thieves would breathe a word against her?"

"Marry, herself."

"Herself, sir? what did you question her too?"

"I tell you we question all the world. Here is her deposition, can you read?--Read it yourself then."

Gerard looked at Denys and read him

MANON'S DEPOSITION

"I am a native of Epinal. I left my native place two years ago because I was unfortunate: I could not like the man they bade me. So my father beat me. I ran away from my father. I went to service. I left service because the mistress was jealous of me. The reason they gave for turning me off was, because I was saucy. Last year I stood in the market-place to be hired with other girls. The landlord of 'The Fair Star' hired me.

I was eleven months with him. A young man courted me. I loved him. I found out that travellers came and never went away again. I told my lover. He bade me hold my peace. He threatened me. I found my lover was one of a band of thieves. When travellers were to be robbed the landlord went out and told the band to come. Then I wept and prayed for the travellers' souls. I never told. A month ago my lover died.

"The soldier put me in mind of my lover. He was bearded like him I had lost. I cannot tell whether I should have interfered, if he had had no beard. I am sorry I told now."

The paper almost dropped from Gerard's hands. Now for the first time he saw that Manon's life was in mortal danger. He knew the dogged law, and the dogged men that executed it. He threw himself suddenly on his knees at the alderman's feet. "Oh, sir! think of the difference between those cruel men and this poor weak woman! Could you have the heart to send her to the same death with them; could you have the heart to condemn us to look on and see her slaughtered, who, but that she risked her life for ours, had not now been in jeopardy? Alas, sir! show me and my comrade some pity, if you have none for her, poor soul. Denys and I be true men, and you will rend our hearts if you kill that poor simple girl. What can we do? What is left for us to do then but cut our throats at her gallow's foot?"

The alderman was tough but mortal; the prayers and agitation of Gerard first astounded, then touched him. He showed it in a curious way. He became peevish and fretful. "There get up, do," said he. "I doubt whether anybody would say as many words for me. What ho, Daniel! go fetch the town clerk." And, on that functionary entering from an adjoining room, "Here is a foolish lad fretting about yon girl. Can we stretch a point? say we admit her to bear witness, and question her favorably."

The town clerk was one of your "impossibility" men.

"Nay, sir, we cannot do that: she was not concerned in this business.

Had she been accessory, we might have offered her a pardon to bear witness."

Gerard burst in. "But she did better. Instead of being accessory, she stayed the crime; and she proffered herself as witness by running hither with the tale."

"Tush, young man, 'tis a matter of law." The alderman and the clerk then had a long discussion, the one maintaining, the other denying, that she stood as fair in law, as if she had been accessory to the attempt on our travellers' lives. And this was lucky for Manon: for the alderman, irritated by the clerk reiterating that he could not do this and could not that, and could not do t'other, said "he would show him he _could_ do anything he chose." And he had Manon out, and, upon the landlord of the "White Hart" being her bondsman, and Denys depositing five gold pieces with him, and the girl promising, not without some coaxing from Denys, to attend as a witness, he liberated her, but eased his conscience by telling her in his own terms his reason for this leniency.

"The town had to buy a new rope for everybody hanged, and present it to the bourreau, or else compound with him in money: and she was not in his opinion worth this munic.i.p.al expense; whereas decided characters like her late confederates, were." And so Denys and Gerard carried her off, Gerard dancing round her for joy, Denys keeping up her heart by a.s.suring her of the demise of a troublesome personage, and she weeping inauspiciously. However, on the road to the "White Hart" the public found her out, and having heard the whole story from the archers, who naturally told it warmly in her favour, followed her hurrahing and encouraging her, till finding herself backed by numbers she plucked up heart. The landlord too saw at a glance that her presence in the inn would draw custom, and received her politely and a.s.signed her an upper chamber: here she buried herself, and being alone rained tears again.

Poor little mind, it was like a ripple, up and down, down and up, up and down. Bidding the landlord be very kind to her, and keep her a prisoner without letting her feel it, the friends went out: and lo! as they stepped into the street they saw two processions coming towards them from opposite sides. One was a large one attended with noise and howls and those indescribable cries, by which rude natures reveal at odd times that relationship to the beasts of the field and forest, which at other times we succeed in hiding. The other, very thinly attended by a few nuns and friars, came slow and silent.

The prisoners going to exposure in the market-place. The gathered bones of the victims coming to the churchyard.

And the two met in the narrow street nearly at the inn door, and could not pa.s.s each other for a long time, and the bier, that bore the relics of mortality, got wedged against the cart that carried the men, who had made those bones what they were, and in a few hours must die for it themselves. The mob had not the quick intelligence to be at once struck with this stern meeting: but at last a woman cried "Look at your work, ye dogs!" and the crowd took it like wildfire, and there was a horrible yell, and the culprits groaned and tried to hide their heads upon their bosoms, but could not, their hands being tied. And there they stood images of pale, hollow-eyed despair, and oh how they looked on the bier, and envied those whom they had sent before them on the dark road they were going upon themselves! And the two men who were the cause of both processions, stood and looked gravely on, and even Manon, hearing the disturbance, crept to the window, and, hiding her face, peeped trembling through her fingers as women will.

This strange meeting parted Denys and Gerard. The former yielded to curiosity and revenge, the latter doffed his bonnet, and piously followed the poor remains of those whose fate had so nearly been his own. For some time he was the one lay mourner: but when they had reached the suburbs, a long way from the greater attraction that was filling the market-place, more than one artisan threw down his tools, and more than one shopman left his shop, and touched with pity, or a sense of our common humanity, and perhaps decided somewhat by the example of Gerard, followed the bones bare headed, and saw them deposited with the prayers of the Church in hallowed ground.

After the funeral rites Gerard stepped respectfully up to the cure, and offered to buy a ma.s.s for their souls.

Gerard, son of Catherine, always looked at two sides of a penny: and he tried to purchase this ma.s.s a trifle under the usual terms, on account of the pitiable circ.u.mstances. But the good cure gently but adroitly parried his ingenuity, and blandly screwed him up to the market price.

In the course of the business they discovered a similarity of sentiments. Piety and worldly prudence are not very rare companions: still it is unusual to carry both so far as these two men did. Their collision in the prayer market led to mutual esteem, as when knight encountered knight worthy of his steel. Moreover the good cure loved a bit of gossip, and finding his customer was one of those who had fought the thieves at Domfront, would have him into his parlour and hear the whole from his own lips. And his heart warmed to Gerard and he said, "G.o.d was good to thee. I thank him for't, with all my soul. Thou art a good lad." He added drily, "shouldst have told me this tale in the churchyard. I doubt I had given thee the ma.s.s for love. However," said he (the thermometer suddenly falling) "'tis ill-luck to go back upon a bargain. But I'll broach a bottle of my old Medoc for thee: and few be the guests I would do that for." The cure went to his cupboard and, while he groped for the choice bottle, he muttered to himself, "At their old tricks again!"

"Plait-il?" said Gerard.

"I said nought. Ay, here 'tis."

"Nay, your reverence. You surely spoke: you said 'At their old tricks again!'"

"Said I so in sooth?" and his reverence smiled. He then proceeded to broach the wine, and filled a cup for each. Then he put a log of wood on the fire, for stoves were none in Burgundy. "And so I said 'At their old tricks!' did I? Come, sip the good wine, and, whilst it lasts, story for story, I care not if I tell you a little tale."

Gerard's eyes sparkled.

"Thou lovest a story?"

"As my life."

"Nay, but raise not thine expectations too high, neither. 'Tis but a foolish trifle compared with thine adventures."

THE CURe'S TALE

"Once upon a time, then, in the kingdom of France, and in the Duchy of Burgundy, and not a day's journey from the town, where now we sit a sipping of old Medoc, there lived--a cure. I say he lived; but barely.

The parish was small, the parishioners greedy; and never gave their cure a doit more than he could compel. The nearer they brought him to a disembodied spirit by meagre diet, the holier should be his prayers in their behalf. I know not if this was their creed, but their practice gave it colour.

"At last he pickled a rod for them.

"One day the richest farmer in the place had twins to baptize. The cure was had to the christening dinner as usual; but, ere he would baptize the children, he demanded, not the christening fees only, but the burial fees. 'Saints defend us, parson,' cried the mother; 'talk not of burying! I did never see children liker to live.' 'Nor I,' said the cure, 'the praise be to G.o.d. Natheless, they are sure to die; being sons of Adam, as well as of thee, dame. But, die when they will, 'twill cost them nothing; the burial fees being paid and entered in this book.' 'For all that, 'twill cost them something,' quoth the miller, the greatest wag in the place, and as big a knave as any; for which was the biggest G.o.d knoweth, but no mortal man, not even the hangman. 'Miller, I tell thee nay', quo the cure. 'Parson, I tell you ay,' quo the miller.

"Twill cost them their lives.' At which millstone conceit was a great laugh; and in the general mirth the fees were paid and the Christians made.

"But when the next parishioner's child, and the next after, and all, had to pay each his burial fee, or lose his place in heaven, discontent did secretly rankle in the parish. Well, one fine day they met in secret, and sent a churchwarden with a complaint to the bishop, and a thunderbolt fell on the poor cure. Came to him at dinner-time a summons to the episcopal palace, to bring the parish books and answer certain charges. Then the cure guessed where the shoe pinched. He left his food on the board; for small his appet.i.te now; and took the parish books and went quaking.

"The bishop entertained him with a frown, and exposed the plaint.